Dreams Within Dreams: Wind God's Origins
by thewriterman91
Summary: As a Marine Infantry Machinegunner deployed during WWIII, you expect to die. You expect it to hurt horrifically. And it did. But being reborn introduced me to a worse pain. The pain of being alone. At least, until I met her. The only other one to remember a past life. But in a world where I know the story, I refuse to let things go as they did. Not while there is life in my body.
1. 1 Humble Beginnings

Alright people, here is my DOS fanfiction that I've had in the works for a while now. I've taken a lot of help and feedback from a beloved SI/OC author, Vixen Tail, without whom I couldn't have made all the improvements I made to this story over the past year. That said, I'll warn you all now that this story will be darker than Silver Queen's. It'll take a while to build to that, and I won't be excessively gory, but there are elements to my story that explore a part of the Naruto-verse I've never seen explored before. My narrative can be long and rambling at times, though I do ask you read it all, else you will miss the small things I have put in that change things. I am currently unsure of an upload schedule, but between school, and work, it'll probably be sporadic, since my writing opportunities are limited, and my hundred-mile-a-minute mind sometimes forces me to other stories I haven't published, and might not publish. For now though, enjoy my story. I look forward to constructive criticism and feedback, though, know I already have over ten chapters written, so don't expect any changes to that. I'm mostly looking for writing style improvement type feedback. Also, telling me what I did right and wrong and what I could have done better is always a good thing. But alas, I am waxing lyrical, so, without further adieu, I bid you welcome to my story, Dreams Within Dreams: Wind God's Origins.

* * *

I will admit to being dazed and confused. After all, I clearly remembered my own death. What was I supposed to do with that? I was born into a world where only the strong survive, and the weak choke to death on their own blood in the middle of the night. Thankfully, whatever force had put me here was merciful enough to block out my memories of being born, but starting what must have been about six hours after my birth, I started to become aware, and began memorizing the things going on around me. It wasn't fun. Being an infant newborn is an example of helplessness. You literally can't do anything for yourself.

That is hell, in my mind.

It wasn't long after I became aware that I was a passenger in my own body, at least at first. I was still "plugged in" to my five senses, so to speak, but I couldn't control my body. After a few months, I got that back, and immediately did my best to start walking. My lack of mobility had driven me insane in those months of helpless inactivity.

At five months old, I was able to walk, six and I could run. This, of course, exhausted my little body, forcing me to sleep for long periods of time. I didn't mind, it made time pass more quickly. Despite my mobility, I wasn't able to leave the orphanage I found myself in until I was about two years old. At that point, I got one of the older orphans, a boy named Ichirou to take me out and about. He didn't understand me, saying that I was far too smart to only be two years old. I agreed, and he had given me a look. But he didn't question me when I got him to take me to the Konohagakure public library. After a week, when it became clear that I was more interested in learning to read, and reading every book in the building, than going out into the streets, was Ichirou was comfortable with taking me there when it opened, leaving me there under the watchful eyes of some ninja, and coming back at closing time, did I really make some progress. I read, yes, but I would also subtly practice manipulating my chakra to see if I could start doing anything significant with it.

I had remembered Spider-Man, and him crawling up and down walls using his fingertips as well as his feet, and how ninja could walk on almost any surface using chakra. At first, I tried to crawl up a wall like Spidey, away from prying eyes, but that didn't work. Then I'd remembered- hadn't Peter had items sticking to himself before he ever found out he could cling to any surface? After wracking my brain, the answer was _yes_ , which gave me ideas.

I hadn't known if it would work, but I was pleasantly surprised when it _did_ , so I used that to my advantage. With all the books I was grabbing on a daily basis, I had plenty of ideas of how to get to where I could walk on walls and such.

It took a year of sticking sheets of paper, and then books to my hands before I thought I had the hang of what I was trying to do. At age three and a half, I read Japanese kanji better than I could speak Japanese, though that disparity was quickly shrinking as my vocabulary grew. Of course, I drew many stares from people in the library, after all, a toddler spending an entire day in a library, _reading_ , no less, was quite unusual.

Everyday I would sit down with close to a dozen books, and burn through at least two, and read a smattering from the others if my mind caught something that I wanted to check in the books I was reading all the way through for that day. By the time I was five, I was well versed in chakra theory, chakra composition, elemental chakra, and had memorized countless chakra control exercises, along with several exercises that were designed to expand chakra reserves. I hadn't done the latter yet, the books indicating that I was too young to go risking the damage that would be necessary for me to expand my reserves. But that didn't mean I couldn't use the control exercises. Which I did.

Mercilessly.

I had first used paper, and then books before beginning to wall crawl around the library. I'd given several civilians, and a few ninja heart attacks when I was crawling head first towards the ground on the side of a bookshelf. There had been others, designed for medical ninja, and I'd found that even though I was young, my chakra was already in the upper ninetieth percentile for volume for medical jutsu, meaning I had to make my control _perfect_ if I ever wanted to learn medical techniques. I didn't, but I challenged myself to make sure I had the control necessary for that.

It was difficult, but years later, I had been glad I had done that. It saved myself a lot of grief.

Of course, my control was helped in part by the fact that I could feel my own chakra even if I wasn't paying attention to it consciously. Matter of fact, I kind of had to make it a point to ignore my chakra. But even more pressing than that, was the fact that I could feel the chakra in those around me, their signatures like little blue LED lights in my mind, pulsing in time to the flow that particular person's chakra flowed at. I had to ignore them, or else I could spend hours in a seemingly catatonic state as I felt the chakra of those around me. I had done it when I was gaining back control over my infant body, so I made it a point to do my best to not do that ever again.

At age five, I was enrolled in the ninja academy, as was required by all hapless orphans of Konoha. I didn't mind, I actually wanted to be a ninja, though I failed to see how seven years of indoctrination of children made for good soldiers. I mean, long term, it wasn't a bad idea, assuming they lived long enough to pass on what they had learned, but the average lifespan of a ninja was, what, seventeen, eighteen years old? I didn't openly question it though, that would've brought a kind of attention down on me that I was looking to avoid. But I couldn't help myself when, on the first day of school, something completely unexpected happened.

I had expected the Third Hokage to make his little motivational speech, as he seemed to love doing in the manga, but what I hadn't expected afterwards was a name that I _knew_ hadn't existed in canon Naruto-verse.

"Nara Shikako, Nara Shikamaru-" said Iruka.

I blinked. Nara Shikako? Who-? Then I saw her. A little thing, hiding in the shadow of what could have only have been her twin, the resemblance was too uncanny for her to not be. She seemed shy, quiet, and most of all, socially awkward. I watched as she held onto her brother's shirt, hiding in his shadow as he followed Iruka towards their classroom.

The next class's worth of children was not mine, nor the one after it, but it was the fourth one.

"…Kasai…" I raised my eyebrow before starting forward, slipping through the crowd like I had in my old life. I moved like a wraith, slipping between limbs and bodies, making nary a sound as I approached the platform everyone had gathered on before. I slid into the crowd of children without any of them being the wiser, though I felt a pair of eyes following my movements. Turning to where I felt a chakra spiking in intrigue, I saw the Third staring at me. I stared back. I'd spent too many years dealing drugs to fully loaded gangsters to bother being intimidated by some old man who was staring at me. I met his gaze evenly, a poker face overcoming my features, and watched as one of his eyebrows raised, even as a small smirk crossed his lips.

It was at that time that my new sensei, a grizzled old man named Kata called for us to follow him. Slowly, the children around me began filtering into the building, talking excitedly as they did. I rolled my eyes at their antics, before once again slipping between bodies, moving to the middle of the group. From there, upon us entering a classroom, I slipped back out of the group, and selected a seat all the way in the back, close, but not too close to the door. I kept a clear view of it through my peripherals on one side, and the windows on the other. Of course, everyone else was in front of me, letting me keep an eye on them. I gave a mental sigh as my neurotic paranoia from my last life showed through in this life. I wasn't sure if it was good, or just a show of how messed up I was if I hadn't let it go after all these years.

The first day of school was a lot of introductions, which I managed to avoid by simply staying quiet. I'd been good at that in my last life as well. Not that it had mattered in the end.

After a month of class work, we were finally allowed to start some physical training in the afternoon, which was carefully monitored by Kata-sensei.

I thanked my lucky stars that I had developed such good exercise habits in my last life, because when I had turned four in this new life, I had forced my new body to begin physical conditioning. Our first PT session, Kata-sensei had told us to just run for as long as we could. Most everyone else had stopped at a half mile, but I continued all the way up to one mile before pretending to be so out of breath that I couldn't continue. Then came the sit ups, which I could have easily done the best in, along with the push-ups, but I held back. It was one thing to be the best, but was another to be so good at everything that everyone knew who you were. I wanted to be seen as average, so I did my best to appear average. It worked against all but Kata-sensei, who once held me back after school one day.

"Kasai," he said, staring hard at me. "Why do you hold back so much?"

I looked at him for along moment before speaking, my voice hoarse with disuse. I had made it a point to not talk a lot in this new life of mine, so my voice wasn't very good.

"What's the point of being the best if there's no one to compete with?" I asked. "I'd rather be seen as average with no competition, than seen as extraordinary with no one able to come close to competing with me. I'd rather not crush any dreams so soon into people's hopeful careers as ninja."

With that, I'd turned and left, ignoring Kata-sensei as he called for me to come back and explain myself.

After that, the rest of the year passed quickly, and the year after that, all the way up until the Uchiha Massacre. I'd honestly forgotten about that little detail. After the Massacre though, I upped my personal training regime, reality having reminded me of something I'd subconsciously been preparing for.

Being a ninja capable of taking on S-rank ninja. After that, I stopped holding back. I still kept silent in class, but I stopped missing questions on purpose. My taijutsu became outright brutal, resulting in many children being taken to the hospital with broken bones, sprained joints, and in one memorable case, a minor case of internal bleeding. Kata-sensei became wary of me, especially after I responded to the other children's attempts at bullying.

"You can't be that tough," said some clan less civilian child one day during recess. "You can't even talk! You must be scared of us!"

I gave him an unimpressed look before responding.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand the language of Idiot at all." I said to him. "Now, I don't know your name, nor do I care to learn it since it would be a waste of my time that could be better spent learning something more worthwhile than the name of some random idiot that won't amount to anything."

Needless to say, none of the other children bothered me again, though they put through a petition making it so that I would only be allowed to spar with a chunin instructor, or someone of equal taijutsu skill. Unfortunately, there wasn't anybody in my class who was on my level in taijutsu. However, in an effort to keep me around people my own age, Kata-sensei asked the other academy instructors if they had any taijutsu prodigies.

Of course, with my luck, the person who they pitted me against, was none other than that strange girl Nara Shikako. Apparently, she'd been given the nickname KO Shikako since she tended to knock her opponents out of the ring fairly quickly, or just knock them out. I didn't care. She'd go down just like all the other children in my class.

"Kasai," Kata-sensei said before our match started. "I don't think I need to ask you to not hold back, but please try to avoid breaking any bones."

I just stared at him until he turned away. Looking around, I saw a couple of medic-nin nearby, and a few extra chunin instructors. Around me, my class jeered at me, hoping that this Shikako would "put me in my place" while her own class yelled the same thing about her. Amazing. Nobody seemed to be hoping that their own class's taijutsu monster would beat the other.

When Iruka began our fight, Shikako rushed forward, trying to take me off guard, and take me out fast.

This, of course, was not to be.

In my last life, I had been a black belt in Kung fu, and had dabbled in jujitsu with a smattering of tai chi, and had studied pressure points and nerve clusters, memorizing them just because I could. Add in my military martial arts training I'd received in the Marine Corps, and I was outright deadly. But I had never had need to use all that martial arts training and knowledge. Now though, that knowledge had a practical application. So, I sidestepped her punch at the last second, curled my index and pointer fingers on each hand into points, and jabbed at specific points along her outstretched arm. Then, as that arm went limp, I grabbed it, _twisted_ as I pulled her towards me before allowing myself to fall back, and _snap_ went her arm as she flipped over my body. I followed through, back rolling and bringing my knee down into her soft abdomen, making her expel her breath in an involuntary cry as her eyes went wide. Straddling her chest, I jabbed her still functional shoulder, and cocked a fist back, freezing in that position.

"Winner, Kasai!" Kata-sensei called, quickly moving in to pull me off the Nara girl. The medic-nin quickly followed, side-eying me as they approached the girl still lying prone on the ground. I didn't pay them any mind, instead looking around to see the reactions to my win, and how brutal its was.

Behind me, there was a gasp of breath as Shikako finally managed to get a breath back into her body with the assistance of the medics, and then came the cry of pain. I could hear the medics trying to talk calmingly to the girl, who, judging by the way her chakra was spiking, didn't like the chakra invading her system in an effort to heal her. Looking at her class, a set of eyes caught my attention. Looking at where I could feel the eyes boring into me, I saw one Nara Shikamaru glaring at me. I sighed, listening to the medic-nin as they tried to figure out what was wrong with Shikako's arms, and failing spectacularly as they thought that I'd done something to her tenketsu and chakra system. After they healed her arm, and continued fretting over her unresponsive arms, I grew frustrated, before stomping over towards them.

"Move," I growled, pushing passed them to the Nara girl.

" _Bunch of dumbasses who can't even figure out that I attacked nerve clusters and not the chakra system."_ I grumbled in English. Just as I was about to start jabbing to un-deaden her arms, she stunned me.

" _You speak English?!"_ She asked, incredulousness clear in her voice.

My head snapped around to look at her. _"Yes, I do."_

She stared at me, and I stared at her.

"Hold still." I said, and with that, I jabbed her arms once again, making her cry out.

"Better?" I asked.

"Yes." She said, flexing her fingers. "But my arms and hands tingle like I slept on them."

"Good, that just means you are fine." I said. "Attacking the nerves can be a very nasty business if done improperly."

That garnered me some looks, but Shikako seemed to take it in stride, before speaking in English once again.

" _So, can we meet somewhere?"_ She asked. _"It's nice to know there's someone here who speaks this language."_

" _Yes,"_ I said. _"Meet me at the Leaf Village Public Library an hour after classes let out for the day."_

She nodded, giving me a shy smile, and I got up and walked away from her.

' _Is she like me?'_ I thought to myself. _'Is she a reincarnation like me? What could all this mean? We're both making ripples in the timeline, but how much of it will be good, and how much will be detrimental to the future?'_

The rest of the day passed without further incident, and as soon as class let out, I booked it for the library, anxious to meet up with this mysterious Nara Shikako. I didn't have to wait long for her to show up there, she was thoroughly out of breath when she showed up five minutes after I got there. Once she got her breath back, I gestured for her to follow me into the library, which she did without question. I led her to the far back of the library, a small table all to ourselves already there.

" _So, first question,"_ I said. _"Are you reincarnated?"_

That certainly got a reaction out of her, her eyes going wide, lips parting in shock. I let the silence stand, knowing that, like me, she'd felt incredibly lonely in this new life. Granted, she had a family, so she wasn't as lonely as me, but I knew that she must have felt lonely. I know I did.

A small part of my mind that was still stuck in responsible adult mode with nieces and nephews noted that Shikako was a cute kid, although that's what my mind said the same thing about me whenever I looked in the mirror.

" _Shocked?"_ I asked. _"Because I know that I am. I never would have thought that there would be someone else reincarnated into this universe, let alone someone so close to the main man himself."_

That sentence seemed to bring Shikako out of her funk, and our afternoon passed too quickly for my taste, for soon, Shikako had to leave for dinner at her house. I bid her a good night, and turned to the books around me, intent on putting away at least five chapters of Chakra Theory: Advanced Edition before closing time.

I didn't manage that.

But for once, I didn't care.

After all, I was content in the knowledge that I wasn't totally alone.

I just wish it'd lasted.

* * *

So, that's a thing. I look forward to the reviews!


	2. 2 Life in the Dark

Nara Shikako was smart. Ridiculously so, and made me feel like I was an absolute idiot at times. Which made me simultaneously love her and hate her. I'd never met a person that could challenge my intellect before, and I found it strangely exhilarating and annoying. Exhilarating in that I could finally let my words _flow_ like I'd been forced not to in my last life, annoying, because she consistently challenged me on things I had always taken for granted.

One thing she challenged me on, was my perspective of things ever since the Uchiha Clan Massacre.

The village had mourned for about a month, and she told me that Sasuke hadn't been in class for a few weeks after it, but when I told her that things were getting dangerous in Konoha without the police around, she told me it wasn't true. Things were always dangerous in Konoha, she insisted. We're surrounded by slightly unstable, trained, professional killers at all times. Why wouldn't it be dangerous to live in a ninja village?

I had stared at her, wondering at how naïve she was. Then I remembered. Clan head's daughter. Clan heir's sister. She's never been to the bad side of town. Despite the Nara Clan's free clinics and such, I had searched extensively for them in the poor sectors around Konoha, and not found a one in them. The poor were forced to leave their home for quite a distance in order to find medical aid.

I wasn't quite in the red lamp district, but I was close enough to know several strippers and such that complained about how far they had to go to get checked for pregnancy and the like. On the one hand, I was glad Shikako had never known the realities of life that I took for granted, on the other, I felt the need to open her eyes. But I didn't feel comfortable doing that with our current physical ages. Perhaps in a couple of years. Maybe I'd teach her the taijutsu style I'd created? Her Shorin-ryu was good, but I mentally questioned what would happen if one of the gangs in my neighborhood decided to use extreme force.

I'd been on their radar for a while now, being the best at the Academy among the orphans bringing me attention I didn't want. In other words, all the local gangs wanted me to be their 'secret weapon' during turf wars, which had become bloodier and more dangerous in the two and a half months since the Uchiha Police ceased to be. Rusty, and dull ninja knives were being brought into fights, and blood stained walls and alleys were becoming common. The old ladies that had given the Uchiha their meals had retreated into their apartments, their windows no longer open during the day. Doors were now locked at all times, instead of merely at dusk and unlocking at dawn. People had to be aware at all times. Children no longer played in the streets. And it showed no signs of getting better any time soon.

Someone needed to step in. Something needed to happen. And I couldn't just fight everyone. There were too many of them, and only one of me. But I could bring attention to it…

I resolved to tell Gramps about it at my next meal with him.

A week after meeting her, Shikako introduced me to her brother, who seemed rather bewildered that his sister had befriended someone on her own. That was also when I met Choji, who was cloud watching with his best friend. The larger boy had offered me a chip, and when I accepted it, the swirl cheeked boy had smiled widely, while the two Nara had given each other knowing looks that I barely caught out of the corner of my eye.

Shikamaru had challenged me to a game of shogi, which required me to come to his house, since it was obviously too troublesome to carry a shogi board around. The rules of the game were about as straight forward as chess, which is not at all by the way, and he explained the game to me. It took five straight lost games before I fully understood it, and Shikako's input of strategies were not helping. If anything, the distraction made me do worse, which only seemed to amuse Shikamaru. Choji was a silent spectator, crunching away on a seemingly endless supply of chips, which he would periodically offer to us.

Nara Yoshino came out after that, offering us pocky sticks, which made the Nara twins' eyes light up like Christmas had come early or something. I was offered a couple, and Yoshino actually had to reprimand the pair of them, who seemed perfectly intent on hogging the small pile all to themselves. Choji didn't even ask for one, though Shikamaru made sure the plumper boy got a couple as well. I made sure I thanked Yoshino profusely for the treat, seeing as how I never really got to have any on a regular basis, but when she smiled at me and said that it was no problem, there had been a quaver in her voice.

What…?

She left quickly after that, though when I looked questioningly at my hosts, they looked as bewildered as I felt. This was a mystery that I needed to solve. Fast.

There was a laundry list of things that didn't add up, and the next monday, after classes let out, I intercepted the twins.

"How do you feel about a little research?" I asked them, easily peering for eavesdroppers without making it obvious. Much.

"What kind?" Shikako asked, her brother seemingly slumping even more.

"I'll tell you at the public library." I stated. "There be some sketchy shit going on around my life in general, and I need other perspectives to pick up the pieces that I miss."

The twins looked intrigued, and since Choji was coming over, I figured I could let him join. Us geniuses had a hard time seeing what was right in front of us. Not to insult Choji, but he probably had less activity going on in his brain, which meant that he would see the obvious. I was always looking for the unusual angles and such, and if there wasn't one, I would obsess over finding one, and completely ignore the obvious. Choji though. Choji would see the obvious, and help us simplify theories to something that would actually make sense. He wasn't dumb by any means, but to him, life was black and white. There was right and wrong. Good and evil.

I wished that I could remember life being that simple. Unfortunately, observing the unobserved, thinking the unthought, remembering the unmemorable, I had never seen anything as purely black or purely white in almost two and a half decades, between this life, and my last.

Hell, even Shikako seemed to be a black and white thinker. I didn't have the heart to make her see otherwise. But judging by the spark of anger and _knowing_ I saw in Shikamaru's eyes, I knew that he hadn't thought in black and white since sometime after he started down the path to being a ninja. He didn't want his sister to know what he had figured out himself. What I had figured out, and knew, and lived.

But he let his sister drag him with her as we traveled to the library, me letting them take the long, tedious routes because I didn't want them to see the things I was used to seeing. No matter how genius Shikamaru was, I didn't want him to see the things that he had figured out. Better he knew, and not see, then know, see, and have the nightmares I suspected any _normal_ eight year old would have upon seeing them for the first time.

I'd seen plenty of bodies lying in alleys since the Uchiha were all killed. They didn't need to see that yet.

The library seemed to be a place that Shikako was familiar with, though I had never seen her before in there. Then again, I usually sat in a secluded corner near the bookshelves concerning chakra and chakra theory. She was interested in seals long before I was, and history before that. Or so she said, as she lead us towards the history section, going automatically to a particular book on a particular bookshelf.

"This book," she said. "Contains a record of every major clan that ever existed before the Elemental Nations and the Hidden Villages were formed."

"What, you think I'm from some clan?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied. "And I bet that you have some distinguishing marks that could help us identify which one."

I shook my head.

"I wasn't talking about who my family was when I said there was sketchy shit with my life." I said. "I'm talking that there's some kind of fucking conspiracy against me."

I got looks from the three other kids, but I went on, ignoring them.

"When I was two, I had to blackmail an older kid into bringing me here, and I learned how to read using all the kids books in the kids section on my own." I began. "Nobody at the orphanage would let me near books. Or teach me how to read or write. I'm completely self taught on reading and writing. Also, I didn't know what I looked like until I got here. We have no mirrors at the orphanage for us to see what we look like. All of the teachers glare at me, even though I'm the class Rookie of the Year, and they keep removing me from activities because I'm taking our training seriously. I'm not allowed to play tag, I can't play ninja because nobody can hide from me, but I can hide from anyone indefinitely, and I'm not allowed near the throwing balls."

Shikako looked mildly horrified, and Shikamaru was looking rather intrigued. Choji just munched on his chips, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"My Shorin-ryu is perfect when I actually decide to use the style, but after I broke Inuzuka Ronguteru's arm, Kata-sensei banned me from sparring. When I happen to be wandering past the Hyuuga Compound, I get mean mugged from the instant I'm in natural vision sight, all the way until I leave it. Before they were all killed, the Uchiha Police that were always near the orphanage outright ignored me, much more harshly than they ignored the other orphans. And yesterday, your mother sounded like she was about to cry when she saw me. There's something going on that has to do with me, but I don't know what."

Shikako and Shikamaru looked at each other, the only sound between the four of us being Choji eating his chips. The twins had one of those silent twin conversations with their eyes, and then they turned to me.

"There's a couple of theories that come readily to mind." Shikamaru said finally, turning to speak to me. "The first one, is that since you're an orphan with no last name, people from ninja clans and people from ninja families but not clans that are established ninja themselves, hate the idea that a random orphan is capable of being a better ninja in training than anyone from the clans or families, or even civilian born that do have family."

"Another theory," Shikako said, drawing my attention to her. "Is that your parents were ninja that did something _really_ bad, and were forced to kill themselves to regain their honor, but people still hate them, and take it out on you."

"That sounds more likely, we'll keep that one." I said. "Continue."

"The third theory," said the male Nara. "Is that one of your parents was from a clan, and had you outside of marriage with an officially and unofficially 'disapproved' person. Or, a variation of that, is that both of your parents were from two different clans, and their relationship was disapproved by both clans, and your parents were forced to give you up, and when they didn't, they were quietly taken out. Or another variation, their relationship was totally secret, and they couldn't keep you because doing so would have raised questions and gotten you killed."

"Or," said Shikako said, giving her brother an exasperated look. "One or both of your parents were foreigners from a country Konoha was directly opposed to during the last war, and then got killed during the Kyuubi attack, leaving you as the son of two unaccepted members of society. Meaning that all of the suspicion they dealt with was then shifted directly onto you."

"And again, you make a reasonable theory." I stated. "Any other ones?"

"What if neither of your parents were ninja, but both were from a foreign village?" Choji questioned.

"That," I said, staring at the Akimichi. "Might actually be it. I swear, if your theory is the one that's right, I'll buy you an afternoon at your favorite restaurant."

The two Nara looked at me with horrified expressions, while Choji grinned so widely I thought the swirls on his cheeks were going to become squares.

With that, though, we threw ourselves into research, and when the clan kids had to go home for dinner, I would disappear into the streets and shadows of Konoha. It was time I started working on some real life skills.

The final month of our third year of the Academy came to an uneventful end, but I was finding it more and more difficult to split my time up. I was continuing with my chakra control exercises, and Hayate had deigned to be my sparring partner so that I could practice my taijutsu style on someone who could actually give me a real fight. Shikako did her best when I allowed her to fight me, but it typically ended up being more of her attacking, and me shutting her down, or me attacking and her not even having a chance to fight back. It hurt her confidence, and I didn't like doing it, so I did the next best thing, and asked Yugao to 'accidentally' find Shikako some time while she was training or something, and offer to help her with her taijutsu.

I was disappointed when Shikako turned down Yugao's offer, but at the same time, I could respect it. She wanted to earn her way through everything.

I had to force down my cold hard logic which pointed out that one should take advantage of anything that promised improvement. I wouldn't force things on her. I wouldn't.

When I wasn't working on chakra control, or sparring with Hayate, I was tearing through the library archives on clans and their identifying features and skills, and not coming across anything that sounded remotely like my own features. And when I wasn't doing any of _that_ , I was spending time with the street urchins, the pick pockets, and the scam artists.

It was fairly simple. I was learning how to read people, like the street urchins. I learned how to steal from the pick pockets. I learned how to con people out of money and other valuable items from the scam artists. And, most importantly, I learned how to get away without notice from all of them.

I already knew how to read a person's body language pretty well, but that wasn't the only thing the urchins taught me. They taught me how to identify people's class, their income and expenses, habits, schedules, and a million other things that allowed the urchins to approach the right people at the right time, and figure out how to beg some food off of people. The urchins walked away with enough money for a measly meal nine out of ten times. It was fascinating, and I dedicated myself to it when I wasn't working on my other street skills.

The pick pockets were very cut throat. After all, if they were caught, they would be thrown in jail. The good ones could lift twenty wallets in an hour without anybody seeing, or noticing, and they would only take enough money to pay for a few days worth of meals. Then they would move to a different sector of Konoha and repeat the process. Some of these pick pockets had real jobs, and used this as a supplement so that their family could keep food on the table while the job kept the roof over their heads, but they had to be extremely discreet about it, or else people would question it and when things got questioned, people disappeared.

The pick pockets had me practice on them until they deemed I had enough skill to begin lifting wallets from unsuspecting civilians. My work with the urchins had taught me how to identify on and off duty ninja, and I avoided trying to lift their wallets for the simple reason that they would more than likely feel it, and get me thrown in jail.

The scam artists were the ones playing shell games on street sides, card games on corners, or could work a crowd into excitement with minor chakra tricks while pick pockets worked over the crowd. I learned how to count cards, and how important long, baggy sleeves were to shell games. The ones that had a stone under one of them? I learned how to keep track of the right one, while also learning how to discreetly throw the stone into my sleeve, and use a bit of chakra to keep it there. I learned from other scam artists how to convince people that this piece of junk here was worth more than that very expensive watch they were wearing, but I supposed I could trade it with you, if you insist.

I approached the gangs, and convinced them, one at a time, to teach me some skill set they considered important to their members. One gang taught me how to disarm someone of their knife, be it a kunai, or a regular civilian knife. Another taught me how to figure out the best way to break into a place without leaving any trace of doing so with but a simple glance. Yet another gang taught me how to identify all the exit points(something I already knew and did, but they did it even more efficiently, so I learned their way) of a building within thirty seconds, and how to get out, blindfolded and deaf. And yet another gang taught me how to blend in with any crowd within seconds.

The final gang, taught me the importance of bolt holes, secret passageways, and how to disguise them perfectly, without a hint of a clue indicating the entrance.

Through all of this, I learned how to create a deep cover for myself. I taught myself how to spy, after all, if any of the gangs learned I was learning stuff from the others, they all would've come after my head. And though I was proficient in all the skills they taught me, they were all better than me in all ways that they had taught me. I wouldn't have a chance.

Shikako and Shikamaru always asked what I was up to when I was leaving them at the library, which I evaded easily by simply not replying. They didn't need to know.

I was introduced to Ino and Sakura that summer, Shikamaru dragging me along since he was being dragged by Shikako to the Yamanaka flower shop for whatever reason. It was interesting, to put it lightly. Part of me from Before didn't want to be anywhere near that pollen colony, but another part didn't want to go because I remembered when I'd gone near the Yamanaka Compound years before. I was afraid of the same thing happening to me at the flower shop. On the other hand, maybe this was a new skill set I could learn. In school, the lessons had included how the Yamanaka who were not proficient at Mind Walking usually took to medicine(hence their presence in the Nara clan clinics around the village) or poison making. That last was what I wanted to learn. Nothing too complicated, just some basic paralysis, maybe a fear inducing agent, something along those lines.

I was slightly surprised though, when I saw that Sakura was there as well, and both she and Ino had short cropped hair. I could only ever remember Ino having a long high tail in the manga, with the exception of the chunin exams when she cut it off to trap Sakura. I didn't know that her hair had been short when she was in the Academy. Her pupil-less blue eyes stared at me as I entered with the twins, and I saw that she wore a pink sundress with some kind of purple apron over it around her waist.

Sakura, who stood nervously next to her, wore a purple ribbon on her head to pull her hair up and out of her face, the ends made to look like bunny ears. Her pink shirt fell to her knees, a pair of leggings barely making it obvious that she was wearing anything under it, and she was fidgeting, half behind Ino.

"Shikako-chan!" Ino called excitedly, pulling Sakura with her as she approached us. "How are you? Who's this guy with you and Shikamaru?"

Shikako pulled Ino into a quick hug before turning and introducing me as the guy that won the taijutsu tournament. After the expected explosion from the loud Ino, and the rather quiet Sakura, we got along rather well, once I got them to understand that I was top of my class, and Rookie of the Year in it as well, and felt that it was best to maximize my training by never holding back. It seemed to be enough for them, and the rest of that afternoon was spent talking and getting to know one another. When it was near sunset though, I disappeared between one word and the next, needing to get back to the orphanage, stopping only to lift some wallets and grab some food to eat on my way to it.

I got back just in time to see a mugging go bad, and I was forced to turn my head and continue on, even as I heard the gurgling of the girl choking on her own blood.

' _Fuck it.'_ I thought to myself, turning around and heading back towards the center of the village. _'The shit needs to stop. And I know just how to do it.'_

I took to the roof tops, not caring that I would be exhausting my body and my chakra reserves to use something we had only barely covered the theory of in class.

I made it to the Hokage Tower in ten minutes, and I slammed harshly into the window to Gramps's office, startling him, and putting an ANBU at my back with a sword to my throat. I ignored it, in favor of meeting Gramps's startled eyes.

"Gramps, I just saw a murder near the orphanage." I stated calmly. "And there's more I need to tell you besides."

There was a flutter of chakra from the ANBU behind me, and I suddenly found myself in front of Gramps. I was disoriented for a moment, wondering if I'd just experienced a Shunshin, before shaking the feeling and the thoughts away. There were more important things going on.

"Kasai," Gramps said, kneeling before me, putting his gnarled hands on my shoulders. "I need you to describe to me exactly what you saw, and where. I need you to be detailed."

Looking him directly in the eyes, I began talking, easily recounting the way the Futekigo Chiku, or Incongruent District, had been before, and now after the Uchiha Massacre. I explained the escalation of violence, the bloodiness between the gangs, everything of that nature. Throughout my time, I continued seeing ANBU flicker in and out of the office, barely seeing their armored forms before unknown (probably ANBU specific) hand signs were flashed too fast for me to make out, and they disappeared once more.

My chakra sense, that was still getting more sensitive, insisted that the tower was absolutely buzzing with high power chakra signatures, though I couldn't physically see them. There seemed to be more coming, but I ignored it, instead talking about my experiences with each gang, and how they were organized, who was who, what was what, what the status quo was and how it was best changed. There was one ANBU in the corner behind me, and when I looked back, I saw that it was a woman, judging by the body, and her hand was flying across a scroll as I talked, probably taking down my statement word for word. Good. I wasn't repeating anything.

I talked for hours, and at the end, Gramps sat back in his chair, rubbing a hand over his tired face.

"Take Kasai to my family house, tell my son we are putting him up until further notice." He said to an ANBU that appeared out of nowhere. More hand signs flew, none of which I comprehended, and the ANBU nodded before clasping a hand on my shoulder. A sensation of moving without moving, and I pitched to the ground, trying to keep my last meal down. It took me a bit before I regained my bearings, and spent much of it trying to figure out where I was.

Judging by the street, that building over there… Yup. Rīgarudisutorikuto, or Regal District. Cobbles looked freshly cleaned. Smelt like it too.

Looking ahead, I recognized the house, it was one I'd considered investigating once before, due to its rather dilapidated appearance. Gramps lived _here_? Wait. Chakra buzz. Non human. No, partially human. Half human, half something else. Not natural, not unnatural. Something between. Radiating. Epicenter dead ahead. Approximately twelve to fifteen meters. Stationary, consistent chakra flow. No waves or grooves associated with chakra pulse. Not ninjutsu. Semi-genjutsu.

"Seals?" I questioned. "The house is hidden behind seals that create an area of effect genjutsu on casual passersby, right?"

The ANBU cranked his neck to stare at me behind his mask, the animal escaping me at the moment. Then he nodded, and I started forward towards the house. As I approached the gates, I felt a tickle in the back of my head, that odd chakra trying to invade my system, making my skin itch in a non-physical way that irritated me.

 _Didn't I have something to do else-_

No, that was the seal, trying to get me to leave. It was powerful, I'd give it that much, but the key to overcoming it was intense concentration and total focus. Something I had to spare. I stopped only a step away from the gates, an invisible threshold right in front of me. Turning my head, I squinted, and barely made out a faint haze in the air that curved around the property. Facing forward again, I stepped forward, feeling a thin membrane of chakra break over my skin like the surface tension of water in a still pool, and with a little wave, the once dilapidated house reappeared as a rather nice looking, classic Oriental house. The wood was expensive looking, the rice paper doors and walls painted with delicate, intricate patterns that made your eyes get lost in the complexity.

The ANBU had been keeping pace with me the whole time, and knocked on the door frame when we came to the front of the house. There was a lantern lit up out on the veranda, since sunset had come and gone while I was talking with Hiruzen. A young man came to the door, an eyebrow raised, the lone visible hand flashing those incomprehensible signs again, the ANBU responding in the same way, no words spoken aloud. Then there was a pressure at the back of my neck, and darkness took me.

The month following me reporting the goings on in my home district, saw me staying in the Hokage's home, where I met a toddler named Konohamaru, and followed by ANBU everywhere I went. It was annoying, to say the least. Though, I think I gave them the most relaxing job, since all I did was go to the library, and train with Hayate and the Nara twins. I occasionally would pick pockets for a meal on the street, and though I never got caught, I knew the ANBU were taking note of what I was doing. People's chakra would kind of _twist_ whenever they were intrigued or interested, and despite how well their chakra was suppressed, I would still be able to feel it. Whenever I stole money, the ANBU, no matter the different signatures, would all _twist_ in a certain way, and eventually, I took it to be a sign of intrigue, or interest.

Shikako eventually asked me about my various tails, and refused to release me until I told her. We had been having a quiet Sunday afternoon, her and her brother having dragged me to a small clearing in their clan forest for cloud watching. The ANBU watching me had hesitated, before following us into the forest, at a much slower pace than before.

It was a rather chill summer day, rather unusual in Fire Country, and as a result, Shikako had pulled me and her brother close to her when we flopped down, sandwiching her between us. I didn't mind, and Shikamaru had murmured a quiet "troublesome" under his breath before relaxing. It was only after I felt his chakra drop to a rather low, uniform humming, that Shikako sprang her trap, clamping her arms around my arm closest to her, and whispering to me, her voice a little panicky, asking if I knew about my tail. I had laughed, patting her on the head in a mock condescending way, which made her pout amusingly, while I told her that it was for my safety. She questioned why, threatening to wake her brother, which was when I pinched a pressure point beneath her carotid artery, making her seize, her body freezing as she stared at me wide eyed.

"It's nothing you need to worry about." I'd said. "I'll let you know what it's about when you're old enough."

And with a slight twitch, the pressure point I was holding knocked her out. I arranged her so that she was cuddling her brother, and moved her hair braid to cover the tiny mark left on her neck. It wouldn't hide it for long, and it was small, so hopefully it would go unnoticed until it was almost gone, but I didn't want to chance it too much.

Jumping up towards my tail, I took a place not ten feet from him.

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that you were _afraid_ of this forest, ANBU-san," I stated just loudly enough for him to hear. "Is there something you'd like to confess?"

There was a flicker of chakra, and as I turned to look at my tail, there was that semi-familiar feel of moving without moving, and I pitched over in the Hokage's office. I regained my bearings faster than the last time I had been transported via shunshin, in time to see the ANBU finish flashing signs to Gramps. Gramps had one eyebrow raised as he looked curiously at me, his chakra, large as it was, gave a minor little _twist_ of intrigue as the ANBU finished his hand signs.

"It would appear, Kasai," he said. "That you have skills you haven't shown before?"

I blinked in surprise.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You are a chakra sensor, and, apparently, a very good one." Gramps, no, Sandaime said.

I cocked my head. I knew what I could do, but I didn't think anything of it. Never heard a term put to it. What was so special about it? Shouldn't everybody be able to sense chakra?

I voiced these thoughts, only to get a head shake from the Sandaime.

"Kasai, according to Bird here, my _ANBU stealth specialist,_ you were capable of sensing his chakra signature when it was suppressed to a level I myself find difficult to sense when he is _right next to me._ " Sandaime stated, staring hard at my bewildered face, his words striking me hard. "You managed to sense him at a distance of approximately twenty meters, and according to all reports regarding you ever since you brought those situations into the light a month ago, you have been able to sense all of them no matter what."

"You call that suppressed?" I asked incredulously. "You couldn't get more obvious unless you waved a bright red flag in front of a bull!"

The ANBU and Hokage traded glances, subtle signs flowing from the former.

"Why have you been researching all of the clans in the Elemental Nations?" Sandaime asked, completely flipping tracks, probably in order to put me off balance. I was, but I wasn't showing it.

"Because I want to know why everything I've learned, I've had to do on my own, and why it seems like nobody but Hayate-nii seems to like me." I replied.

This time, it was the Sandaime's turn to cock his head and stare.

"Explain." He said tersely, and so, I delved into my life, starting with my early years in the orphanage, how I learned to read by blackmailing another kid, how I never knew what I looked like until I got to the library… Chakra control, meeting Hayate, getting tips, and through it all, getting thrown dirty looks by people who seemed to know more about my past than I did. How, despite my efforts and top ranking in classes, the teachers other than Kata-sensei seeming to hate me, and intentionally kept me out of activities.

I even willingly told him about my extracurricular activities, seeing as how apparently ANBU had already told him, so there was no reason to try to hide it from him. He seemed more amused by them, than upset, so I figured that those things were fine, but he seemed perplexed as to why I faced such discrimination for seemingly no reason. In the end, he agreed with my original hypothesis that the answers lay in my medical records, but I was reluctant to go there, because an eight, going on nine year old boy asking for his records would get me laughed out of there.

I was sent back to Sandaime's house, with orders to return at noon the next day. I didn't sleep that well that night. I was finally going to have answers. It at once terrified and excited me. I was going to have _answers_!

At noon, I arrived at Gramps's office, nodding to his secretary who smiled at me, before she knocked on the office door, announcing that I was there.

"Send him in!" Came through the door, and he woman smiled pleasantly at me as she showed me in. I think it's the first time I entered the room through conventional means.

Gramps sat behind his desk, a weary, but good natured smile on his face as he gazed fondly at me. I didn't know what to expect, when there was that much of a difference between what his attitude had been when I left yesterday, and what it was today.

"It would seem," he said to me, once I was seated across from him. "That your friend, Nara Shikako, had a good idea of checking the records of all clans first, though your search would have proven futile in the end."

"That tells me, what, exactly?" I asked, one eyebrow raised. Gramps chuckled.

"To put it simply, there are certain clans that were so strong, multiple villages came together in order to put them down." He said.

"The Uzumaki clan!" I breathed.

"Among others, yes." Gramps smiled. "Due to… Circumstances we need not delve into, Konoha is in possession of nearly every genetic sequence relating to clans that the Elemental Nations has ever seen. Due to this, we can match anybody to any clan, provided there is even a question of heritage."

"But every newborn has a blood draw in order to put their information into the system." I supplied.

"Correct. However, in the event where the father is nowhere to be found, and the mother dies in childbirth, like your own did, it is standard procedure to use that system to find relatives to place the infant with before we consider the orphanages of Konoha. The Third War ended shortly before your generation was born, so currently, the village is overwhelmed with orphans from, not just ninja clans, but also the children of non-clan shinobi who died on the front lines, or due to complications in birth."

"Where are you going with this?" I questioned suspiciously.

"Kasai, you are related to arguably the two most dangerous clans this continent has ever seen, both of which driven to near extinction by village alliances long dead."

"I swear to the gods, if you say I'm related to the Uchiha, you might as well kill me now."

That elicited a laugh from him, and I felt the ANBU 'hidden' around the office flicker their chakra, which I assumed meant that they were amused by my words.

"No, no, you are not," Gramps said to me. "You mentioned one of the two clans you are related to earlier, but the other clan has almost been lost to the pages of a forgotten history that I myself was forced to refresh myself on."

Did I hear that right? I mentioned one of the two clans I was related to earlier? But the only clans is mentioned earlier were the Uchiha, which Gramps said I was related to, and… the… Uzumaki.

Holy.

 _Shit_.

Gramps laughed again when he saw the realization dawn on me.

"I'm related to the Uzumaki clan?!" I exclaimed.

"Ten generations removed, actually." Gramps stated. I raised an eyebrow questioningly. "We can determine how long it's been since the blood was purely of that clan. Judging by the blood work, and simple supposition, we were able to determine that the last full-blooded Uzumaki in your direct line of ancestors, was ten generations ago. The blood of an Uzumaki is extraordinarily potent, and we estimate that it would take another fifteen generations before we would be unable to see any Uzumaki blood in you. As such, you do retain some of the traits of the Uzumaki clan, though awakening the gifts inherent in your blood is entirely up to you, and chance.

"Wait a second." I said. "Isn't there another guy named Uzumaki in my round of classes?"

"Ah, I was wondering how to bring that up." Gramps said. "There is, in fact, an Uzumaki Naruto in your round of classes, and it's funny you should mention him. You see, when the blood results came in, there was an Uzumaki called in. She was the only Uzumaki in the village, by the name of Kushina. Ah, she was ecstatic to hear of another Uzumaki, only to despair that your mother passed in the process of giving birth to you. To hear that you might not make it either, due to the fact you were born a month and a half premature, scared her significantly, and she raised hell in the hospital, making sure you would survive, paying for your treatment until such time as she could adopt you.

Whoa. She… I mean…

"What?!" I squeaked.

"Mm. She tried to adopt you, as her sole clan member that we knew was alive."

"Then why didn't she?!" I questioned loudly.

"Because, the day she gave birth to her son, Uzumaki Naruto, was the day the Kyuubi attacked. Despite orders otherwise, she used a special ability of hers that she attributed to her heritage, to restrain the Kyuubi until our dear Yondaime, was able to kill it.

It was an epic retelling, completely false, but believable enough that nobody would question me if I spouted off with it.

"So, she would have adopted me?"

"Yes. She came and visited you almost every day while you were in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit. She wanted to take you home the instant you were approved to be taken out, but the doctors insisted on two weeks more in the hospital to make sure you would survive the outside world. Unfortunately, a week later, the Kyuubi attacked on the day of your prospective younger brother's birth. As such, the adoption process ceased, and you were diagnosed with something two days after the attack.

"What was I diagnosed with?"

"Chakra Hypersensitivity. And not the good kind, were one is simply an exceptional sensor, but the bad kind, where simply _having_ chakra causes intense pain. Everyone assumed that you were crying constantly because you had to be physically removed from your mother to keep you alive. Then, during the attack, you were so quiet everyone feared you had died. But once it was over, you resumed crying, only louder and more insistent. Nobody knew what to make of it, except for one doctor. About three weeks earlier, he had diagnosed another child, one, Nara Shikako, with the self same disability, down to the type. He ran tests, and confirmed the suspicion he'd made on hearing about you. That is why you stayed in the hospital until you were eight months old, it was to allow the doctors time to see if it would be better to put you out of your misery, or let you go into the orphanages."

 _They thought about killing me?!_ I was glad they hadn't. It was obvious why Shikako hadn't received the same treatment, seeing as how she was the daughter of a major clan head of Konoha, but why did they think about doing that to me?!

Hiruzen must have seen the fear, and questions on my face, because he continued talking.

"Kasai, it was nothing personal," he said. "The problem is that you and Nara-chan are anomalies. All other cases have seen hypersensitive children reduced to mere vegetables by the time they are six due to the pain their own chakra causes them. It would have been considered a mercy to end that suffering."

I slumped down in my chair, mind awhirl with all the information I'd just been given. It was… overwhelming, to put it lightly. I'd just been reborn, but I'd already been that close to death again?! I needed to get my mind off of this.

"W-what's the other clan that I'm related to?" I asked after a moment of silence.

"That," Gramps sighed. "Is where it gets complicated."

"How?" I asked. "How is it complicated?"

"Because, Kasai," he stated. "The other clan you are related to is a clan that single-handedly destroyed an entire battalion of Konoha shinobi and their support elements in a single battle during the Second Ninja World War. The battalion was made up primarily of Yamanaka, Akimichi, and Nara. Their support elements were made up almost entirely of civilian born ninja, or second generation ninja, all of them considered for ANBU status if that mission had been successful."

I felt a pit of despair sinking into my stomach, and I let myself fall back against the back of the chair I sat in.

"The clan's name was Kaze, and their ability with their namesake was unparalleled. No hand seals required, they could use the air itself as a mere extension of their body. Their ability with wind was what allowed them to destroy the battalion in mere moments, using, according to the lone survivor, a mere four men, and four women. It is the worst defeat in Konoha's history, and a closely guarded secret.

"Who was the lone survivor?" I asked.

"Nara Yoshino's mother. Her father was killed by one of the Kaze clan members. Yoshino-chan was old enough at the time to feel the full impact of that massacre, and has harbored a grudge against that clan ever since."

So that's why… Things were falling into place in my mind now. But I still had questions.

"What happened to the Kaze clan?" I asked, trying desperately to distance myself from them as much as I could.

"The clan was loosely associated with Sunagakure, but after hearing of the massacre, the Sandaime Kazekage declared them enemies of the village, and forged an alliance with Konoha, and Kirigakure, and as a whole, we destroyed the clan to the last man, woman, and child."

I buried my face in my hands, trying to reconcile the village I knew, with a three village alliance that destroyed half of my heritage in an attack reminiscent of how Uzushiogakure and the Uzumaki clan was destroyed. Or rather, set the example for. In a way, my home was responsible for why I had no family. Or, very little of it.

"We were not as successful as we had once thought, obviously," Gramps said, gesturing to me. "For which I am grateful. The destruction of families and clans is always a terrible thing, and, had I been the one under this hat during those events… Well, I'm not sure what I could have done under the circumstances."

The office was silent, and I rubbed at my eyes, finding them suspiciously wet, which I quickly hid as best I could.

"How far back before I'd be a full blooded Kaze?" I asked.

"Only four generations," Gramps sighed. "Leading me to believe that your great- great-grandparent was a civilian child of two ninja, and left the clan shortly before we destroyed it. Who knows what happened after that, but somehow, your Kaze heritage father found your Uzumaki heritage mother, and you were the product of that union. The child of the first two clans that were wiped almost entirely out of existence, here, in the village that helped destroy one, and provided the example of how to do the same to the other. I cannot express my sorrow at what this village's past mistakes has done to you."

"How does everyone know that I am a descendant of the Kaze clan?" I whispered hoarsely.

"The Kaze clan was known for two things;" Gramps stated. "The first, is their tri-colored, pupil less eyes, and the second, is their incredible intelligence, which was said to rival the Nara clan, which is attributed to their perfect memory, which competes with the Sharingan for memorization purposes."

Well… _Shit!_

"Wait, you mean I'm as smart as a Nara?!" I yelled, getting a chuckle out of him.

"I dare say you can be, if you continue applying yourself as you have been." Hiruzen chuckled. "But you must continue to learn, if you hope to continue to, at the very least, match your friends in intelligence."

I yawned, and looked out the window behind the Sandaime, only to realize that the sun was in the process of setting. My eyes went wide, and my stomach rumbled, as I realized it's been hours since I last ate. Gramps laughed, and a rather large chakra signature I'd ignored approaching, bounced into the office, yelling loudly.

"Old Man, Dog told me you wanted to have dinner with me! We're going to Ichiraku, right?!" The voice shouted.

I twisted in my seat to see who it was, though I had a pretty good idea of who it was, now that I had a voice to listen to. And I was right, it was Uzumaki Naruto, wearing black cargo shorts, and a bright orange shirt with a yellow swirl on the front. He was dirty, his clothes a little rough in places, but his smile, and violent yellow hair were just as bright as I'd seen it in the anime. Just as spiky too.

Gramps laughed loudly, standing from his chair, and coming around to give the blonde a hug that was accepted eagerly, and gratefully returned.

"Yes, I did want to see you for dinner," Gramps said. "And of course we can go to Ichiraku, but first, I'd like to introduce you to someone."

I'd stood, preparing to leave, when I'd heard that last phrase, but upon hearing it, I turned back towards the two greeting each other. I waved at the boy, feeling uncharacteristically shy for some reason, only to get an enthusiastic smile and wave in return.

"Hi, I'm Uzumaki Naruto, and one day I'm gunna take his place!" He yelled, pointing at the Sandaime with his thumb, a fat smile on his face the entire time.

"H-hi?" I said. "I'm… I'm Kasai. You must be the best in your class if you're saying that you're going to take Gramps's place one day."

The smile fell, but quickly returned.

"I'm not, but that won't stop me!" He yelled, punching a fist out at me.

Feeling a little inspired, I punched my own fist out at him.

"Well I'm the best in my class, and I beat Sasuke in that taijutsu competition last school year." I stated, making Naruto gape at me. "I could teach you how to fight like me." I offered.

"W-what?!" He yelped.

"I sometimes study with Nara Shikako, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Choji, and I don't think-"

"You know Choji, Shikamaru, and Shikako?!" He yelled. I blinked. "How have we never met before?!"

"I dunno." I said. "I guess we just hang out with them at different times without realizing it?"

"I guess."

"Well, with introductions out of the way, shall we go get dinner?" Gramps asked, his usual grandfatherly smile upon his face.

"Sure."

"Yatta!" Naruto shrieked, jumping up, punching the air as he did so. Gramps held out his hands, and Naruto immediately latched onto one, the other hand open and waiting. I hesitantly slid my hand into Gramps's, and then, together, we strolled through the still open door, and made our way out of the Tower. Naruto knew exactly where Ichiraku's was, and tugged Gramps along, pulling the both of us forward slightly faster than a regular walk. I didn't mind though. Gramps's words were still echoing in my head, and I kept hearing _'she was going to adopt you'_ over and over again in my head.

 _Naruto_ would've been my _younger brother_. Adopted son of the Red Death of Konoha, and the Yellow Flash of Konoha, if they'd ever gone public about their marriage and subsequent status as parents. Would they have had more children? How-

I had to stop thinking though, as we arrived at Naruto's favorite ramen stand, and I placed my order with my two compatriots, and Gramps quickly got down to business, telling Naruto how he actually did have living family. His reaction was quick, and predictable, with much shouting, hand waving, and righteous indignation. I waved for Hiruzen to tell the story, the words of our earlier conversation still rattling around in my brain. Naruto was actually pretty quiet during the story telling, silently slurping up his ramen, five bowls disappearing into him in the time it took me to eat two. He shot me looks when Gramps told him how close we had been to being brothers, but I hardly noticed, being too busy thinking, slotting puzzle pieces that only existed in my head into holes that had once been fuzzy at best. So many questions answered, and while that was good, it left me feeling lost. I was actually a clan kid. I'd prided myself before on being a clan less civilian born, and doing better than anyone else my age in training, but now I knew I was a descendant of not one, but _two_ clans, both of which had been wiped from the face of the earth almost entirely, due to how powerful they'd been. Granted, neither of my parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents had been ninja from what I'd understood, but the fact that I had that much _potential_ for utter destruction because of my heritage terrified me.

On the one side, _seals_ , reality altering, time-space distorting, _fancy writing_ , on the other, seal less wind jutsu powerful enough to take out a _battalion_ of ninja renowned for their teamwork and ability to overcome any obstacle, and all of their support elements. My heritage was enough to make everyone related to the incident fearful of me, or at least, wary of me. Fear and wariness easily turns into anger in the minds of a crowd. I'd dealt with that too many times in my last life to not know that.

Thankfully, Naruto seemed to be as stunned as I was when Gramps finished his explanation, and we both wandered away from him after he paid for our meal, a request to meet him in his office tomorrow at noon echoing in my mind. I vaguely noticed the invitation did not extend to Naruto, but I assumed I'd be seeing him again soon. I knew it. Now that he knew he had living family, he would be coming to see me every chance he could. Especially since, at one point, his mother had meant to adopt me. I wasn't sure if I was ready for that. I'd gotten so used to being an orphan, with no parents or siblings, the idea that I was related to _Naruto_ of all people was almost enough to make me light headed.

Gramps must have still had paperwork back at his office, because he didn't accompany me back to his home, and I ignored the ANBU trailing behind me as I wandered home the long way. Or, the regular way for anyone but me.

I didn't want to sleep when I got home, my mind was still bouncing off the insides of my skull, but sleep crept up on me, swallowing me down into the darkness.


	3. 3 Learning to Live

**Alright people, due to real life, I had to hold back on the chapters, plus possible other stories my muses were insistent I write. I'm trying to save up chapters so that I always have a buffer between published chapter, and what I'm working on. Originally, I wanted to do a post once a month, but I'm reneging on that, to once every other month. All reviews are appreciated!**

* * *

My remaining summer was spent in a whirlwind, telling the Nara twins and Choji my heritage, how close I'd been to being Naruto's adopted brother, and begging for forgiveness from Yoshino when I told her I knew of my family's history with her own. She'd forgiven me, tearfully telling me she could never hold the actions of my dead clan against a child. We weren't friends, not by a long shot, but, we were, at the least, friendly towards each other. It was better than I'd hoped for.

I recruited Shikako and Shikamaru in helping me teach Naruto how to actually fight, only to find that he was a master of the street fighting style I'd learned on the streets of Konoha. Naruto already had an apartment, but was given a new one, and a stipend to go with it, and I was moved into it on my eighth birthday. Without potential parents to do the paperwork, we weren't able to become official brothers, and I refused to take Naruto's clan name, not because I didn't like it, but because if I did, I would feel compelled to use my other clan name, something I wasn't comfortable with yet.

Thankfully, Naruto understood my reluctance, and didn't push me on the issue, though Shikako continuously questioned my decision. It wasn't until I exploded at her a week before the Academy restarted that she stopped. I'd had to tell her what my other clan had done to hers and her clan allies to get her off my back. She'd apologized, and I'd forgiven her. But conversation for a month afterward had been stilted and awkward. Shikamaru had accused us of having realized we had a crush on each other, until his sister had walloped him so hard he face planted on a playground bench. I felt bad for the kid, until Shikako had steered him straight, with my permission, at which point he'd stared at me. Then he'd droned about how troublesome it was to have someone as smart as him and his sister not in the clan. At which point I'd smacked him around the back of the head. Choji, in the background until now, commented that all great minds must think alike if Shikako and I had both smacked Shikamaru for his smart mouth.

I'd idly contemplated smacking him too, until I saw Shikako's hand twitch towards the rotund boy before stilling at her side once again.

This year, at the Academy, we were finally taught how to throw kunai and shuriken, and how to properly utilize chakra to pump up strength, to allow for the technique called Leaping Monkey. Ironically, it looked a lot like it sounded, at least until the chakra application portion was perfected. You crouched on one branch, arms between your legs, and you leaped for another, landing and slamming back into a crouch to reset yourself for the next leap. I was the best at the chakra part, simply because I'd been water walking longer than most of these kids had been using chakra, and I quickly evolved to the next part, where you leapt, and then landed and pushed off with the lead foot without stopping to reset. This was what all the ninja had been doing in the manga and anime, and it was something that I grasped intuitively. The teachers this year seemed to have all been replaced, with the exception of Kata-sensei, who had always treated me no differently than anyone else in the class despite my prodigious progress, or my previously unknown heritage.

These teachers though, took advantage of my progress, and had me helping them teach the slower students. This included Ronguteru Inuzuka, the girl whose arm I'd broken two years prior in a taijutsu training spar. Both she and her new nin-dog, named Shiromaru, were wary of me, until they figured out I was ignoring her wariness and simply teaching her. I still cuffed her around the head when she got uppity at her failures with chakra manipulation, and I pulled something from my last lifetime with Shiromar. My family had had a dog when I was a kid and teen, and with a veritable dog whisperer older sister, I picked up a lot of tricks for dominating dogs. The best one was flipping them over and baring your teeth against their throats and growling low in your throat. Got them to shut up every time. So whenever Shiromaru got upset when I cuffed his mistress over the head, I just did that to the pup. They figured out real quick who the boss was, and stopped fighting me so much when I was tutoring them.

There was no noticeable improvement in Ronguteru's grades, but her chakra control and manipulation did improve some. Some.

It was October, about a week and a half after Naruto and I celebrated his birthday properly, with a store bought cake and way too much miso ramen, when I got news at lunch with Gramps. Totally unexpected news.

"Though you are, in fact, in the same round of classes as Naruto," Gramps told me over lunch at Yakiniku. "Your class is on the year behind curriculum, due to the nature of educating civilian born. As such, though you are Rookie of the Year in your class, you are technically a year behind everyone else, save the four classes that consist mostly of clan children."

"The four graduation classes." I supplied, eyes narrowed as I thought about the implications. The whole round of classes was set up as a tournament that lasted seven years. There were one hundred and eight openings to make it into. Four classes of twenty seven students was a hundred eight. We started out with two hundred seventy students at the beginning of all this. That was one hundred and sixty students gone, a sixty percent loss. And between four classes, there was a sixty six percent failure rate of genin teams, meaning there were thirty six genin on the jonin track. Seventy two genin would have four options of quitting altogether, (about twenty would) going into the Genin Corps, (about another twenty would do this) returning to the Academy to attempt to make the Jonin Track the next year, (yet another twenty or so, or none, as they would take any of the other three options) and the remaining twelve would worm their way into either being a paperwork ninja or an apprenticeship in the hospital. I'd remembered reading the stats in the library years ago. In reality, only thirteen percent would get Jonin Tracked.

And of those thirty six Jonin Track genin? Twenty five, or nine and a quarter percent, would make it to chunin, the other eleven dying or being forced to retire due to debilitating injuries either before becoming chunin, or soon after becoming chunin. Of the twenty five successful chunin, only seven would go on to become jonin, with eight becoming special jonin, or five and a half percent when combining the two ranks. That was about three percent special jonin alone, though. The remaining ten would die or receive debilitating injuries and retire.

So, in the end, only two and a half percent of all students from one round of classes would achieve jonin. The stats were terrifying, and I understood why that information wasn't part of the curriculum. How many would drop out upon hearing those numbers?

"Yes, the four graduation classes," Gramps mused, interrupting my train of thought. "There is an opening in the lowest ranked of the four, and I'm sure you would fit in there easily."

"What are you getting at?" I asked cautiously. I knew there was going to be a deal with a catch, I could feel it in my gut.

"It took a little political strong-arming, but I have secured that spot for you over some clan children whose parents think they deserve to be in the graduating four." Gramps stated, eyeing me closely as he spoke. "However, in order to secure your spot, I had to promise something in return."

"What's the catch?" I sighed out, rolling my eyes.

"Hmph. Times like this I forget you're only nine years old, Kasai." Gramps chuckled. "The catch, as you put it, is that you must reclaim your title of class Rookie of the Year within two months to the day of your transfer. With no assistance from any teachers beyond that which you will receive in class, you will have a mere two months to overcome a year's worth of educational gap, and catch up to your peers in theory, genjutsu study, ninjutsu study and application, taijutsu, though I doubt you'll have difficulty with that last, and weapons training, which, again, I doubt you'll have difficulty with."

My eyes narrowed at the prospect of this challenge.

"Gimme the books, Gramps," I smiled. "I know you have them or else you wouldn't have brought the subject up. I've got a spot to keep."

* * *

A week later, I was laughing at the dumbfounded expressions of my friends and pseudo-brother after I explained why I alone had been moved from my class. Apparently, other than telling the clan heirs and those in the same class, the Academy instructors never told them about the entire process involved in moving people into their class after someone else dropped out. I had to tell them about how they were in the number one Graduation Class, and how, unless they outright failed the final exams, they were guaranteed to graduate the Academy. Then I explained how the last four years of the Academy were structured to have a higher workload for the non Graduation Classes for multiple purposes. The first, obviously, was so that the civilian born could be on the same level as the clan children, and have a chance at getting into the Graduation Four if and when people dropped out. This also had the probably intentional side effect of exponentially increasing dropout rates as people were shunted into spots they weren't mentally capable of handling. It was also to provide a mock-up of the stress they would handle as active duty ninja.

I found that last laughable.

The last reason, was so that they could weed out everyone who wasn't qualified to even be genin. The day I told them about my challenge was also the day I was moved into the bottom class of the Graduation Four, which provided me eight weeks to reclaim my title as Rookie of the Year in my new class. My cutoff time was Yule Tide vacation start.

Shikako insisted on helping me catch up to them, but I told her how I wasn't allowed help, and that I would be just fine.

" _After all,"_ I said to her in English. _"I have had to learn far more complicated material in less time in my last life. This will be nothing."_

She'd looked disbelievingly at me, before shaking her head and muttering about troublesome Uzumaki's. I let Naruto handle that one. I wasn't going near it, even with a ballistic suit and a twenty foot pole.

Damn females.

Since I knew that my taijutsu and weapons training was head and shoulders above everyone in my round of classes, I relaxed a bit there, though Hayate still dragged me out for kenjutsu practice. I was his personal exercise partner while he continued bringing himself back up to battle capability. But when he wasn't doing that, I was spending nights and weekends cooped up in the apartment, finishing whatever homework I hadn't finished in class, and then veritably inhaling the textbooks Gramps had given me the day he gave me the news. The books came with various assignments hidden at the end of every chapter, which I blasted through, easily acing everything. I was also spending an extra hour at school every day with my new class's lead teacher, Suzume-sensei, who was educating me on genjutsu theory and application, and ninjutsu theory and application. Though, she was doing this after setting the girls to the task of the day for Kunoichi Lessons.

The looks I got from the girls, I could have done without, but I didn't care enough to be embarrassed that I was in a kunoichi class, since I wasn't actually _taking_ the class. Suzume-sensei was a slave driver, and was of the school of thought that doing was learning. Which, I had no problem with. I'd always learned that way, so her teaching style meshed well with my learning methods. Her teaching method being putting me under really obvious genjutsu, to get me used to sensing her chakra invading my system, (which I did subconsciously anyways) and slowly making the genjutsu more and more subtle. She called me a genjutsu prodigy until I told her I had chakra hypersensitivity, which meant I could easily tell her chakra apart from my own, no matter how subtle she made her illusions. Then we found out that, despite my phenomenal chakra control, I had too much chakra to viably create a genjutsu targeting a single person. I needed to put multiple people under an illusion in order for my control to equate my reserves.

It was a problem I'd never even contemplated having. And that was when Suzume-sensei's Kunoichi Class got involved in my training.

"I hear you're having trouble with the ladies, Kasai?" Gramps chuckled after we'd sat down at Ichiraku for lunch, about a week or so after Suzume-sensei thought it'd be a good idea to have me cast a genjutsu on her Kunoichi class.

"I don't want to talk about it." I grumbled.

It had been a disaster, to put it lightly. And I made Shikako promise to not tell anyone about what had happened, on pain of taijutsu spars. She'd glared at me while trying (and failing) to hold back her laughter. But she promised, which was good enough for me.

Thankfully, Gramps hadn't pestered me about it, and the subject had been dropped, while Suzume-sensei told me my genjutsu was good enough to pass for a genin, which was kind of the point.

She also taught me the ninjutsu side of things, teaching me exercises designed to help increase flexibility in the hands and fingers. She'd been appalled when I told her that I didn't even know the twelve hand seals necessary for ninjutsu, and so, told me to practice them during class, while she was teaching me during the hour after school, and whenever I was doing my book work. Naruto thought I knew some amazing ninjutsu if I was always doing hand seals, until I told him it was part of my catch up work. Then he'd realized what that implied, and spent an hour or two ranting in his room about the unfairness of the world. I didn't bother with talking to him about it. In the four and a half months since we'd moved in together, I'd confirmed something I'd really only just accepted Before.

Naruto was a _lot_ smarter than he let on.

His pranks. Oh _man,_ his pranks. They were elaborate. They were meticulously crafted. Details were polished to perfection. Joint casing was done subtly. And nobody knew when he had struck until it was too late. Hell, I'd gotten hit with the itching powder on occasion, but the subsequent sleep deprivation I put him through in retaliation ensured that that stuff stayed well away from me after that.

I could see, though, how that could transfer into Naruto being the ultimate trap maker. Add also, his spontaneity. The Konoha Street Fighter Style (as I had dubbed it in my head) had been mastered to an art form by Naruto, and the longer he fought, the more out there his punches and kicks became, until eventually, any defense crumbled under the assault. The matter was, though, letting him build up that kind of momentum in a fight. I didn't let him do that in sparring anymore, and forced him to build up that momentum quickly, before people figured out what I had, and shut him down. But, he was good at planning. He was a people person, and he knew human nature. Don't let anyone tell you they're the same thing, because they're not. But he knew both, and if got to case an area ahead of time, he could lay traps that he could draw opponents into, with lethal consequences.

When I told Shikako about this, she'd immediately taken over that part of Naruto's training, telling me that with her natural aptitude for strategy, she could teach Naruto more about that than I could. Which I easily acceded to her. No use putting up a fight over something like that. Training was training, and if someone was better than you at something, and they offer to train you, you should take them up on the offer. That was how I thought of things, at least.

But despite how smart he was, Naruto could be an absolute idiot at times. Some of his hand seals were messed up, completely, and I subtly pointed Shikako towards that problem. She ended up spending her Saturdays and Sundays at our apartment, working with us on hand seals and strategy. It helped pass the time, and she would sometimes bring lunch with her, enough to feed her, and Naruto and me, which was nice, because it meant that the food stipend Gramps was giving me for the two of us living in the apartment was able to stretch farther.

But in the end, her efforts to help me and Naruto paid off, and the last school day of the calendar year saw me securing my position as class Rookie of the Year in my new class. To celebrate, Gramps took me out to Yakiniku for dinner, and the end of my year was pretty happy.

When school restarted after the Yule season, I was given flak from my new classmates about how I'd stolen the top spot from an Aburame girl, whose name was rather simple. Aburame Modoka. There was a story behind her given name, I was sure, but it wasn't one I was interested in learning. My classmates told me to give up the top spot, and spent many lunch breaks trying to convince me to do so. It was futile, and when it got physical, I just shut them down before they hurt anyone. It took Modoka pointing out the futility of anyone challenging me to a fight, because obviously I'd earned my spot through hard work.

I was once again allowed to spar, in the new class, and I abused that privilege as best I could, putting out a challenge to anyone who thought they could beat me in a taijutsu fight. Suzume-sensei told me I was too overconfident, until I had beaten fifteen of my classmates in a single sparring session. Then she'd just limited me to five spars per session.

I was just glad these kids had no problems hitting and being hit. It made everything better.

The last month of the school year passed with a startling monotony once everyone got it through their thick skulls that I was there to stay.

* * *

We'd been out of school for a week when Shikako found me sleeping in at the apartment, barging in past Naruto to find me.

"What do you want, you insufferable girl?" I'd growled, blinking my eyes as she moved about my room, having turned on the lights.

" _I managed to get the Rookie Nine together for a training session, but Naruto forgot about it, and forgot to invite you to it, so I'm here to get you both,"_ she said in English. "Now hurry up and get changed! We're going to be late!"

"Get out of my room then." I said. "There's a reason why my door was _locked_."

She froze before her head cranked towards me.

"You're naked under that sheet, aren't you?" she asked, her face getting progressively more and more red.

"…"

She turned into a goddamn _blur_ , slamming my door as she raced out of my room. I chuckled to myself before getting out of my bed. Summer started early in Land of Fire, and lasted almost until Naruto's birthday. Since we'd moved into this apartment on my birthday last year, we had discovered that during the summer months, our air conditioning wasn't the best, and until I could lift enough money to get it fixed, we left it off during the night, but kept it on during the day, so the apartment didn't get ridiculously hot. But the apartment was still warm enough for me to want to sleep in the nude. I snickered at the situation, continuously replaying Shikako's reaction in my head as she realized what I'd implied.

When I came out of my room, Shikako was sitting at our kitchen table, her head bowed and hands clasped together, and I did my level best to keep my laughter down to a snicker, which didn't work as well as I'd hoped, because she lifted her face to meet my eyes and glare at me. It wasn't very effective, due to the bright red hue she was sporting, but I kept snickering as I moved through the kitchen, looking for something to eat. Naruto stumbled out a minute later in his orange cargo pants and a black shirt with an orange Uzumaki swirl on the back, and I easily handed the cup ramen to him. He never seemed to eat anything else for breakfast, unless it was hand made by yours truly. He stared morosely at the kettle I'd set on the stove, and I was tempted to tell him that a watched kettle never boiled. Then I remembered that he'd probably take it literally for the next few years and squashed that urge.

Once we'd finished our respective breakfasts of ramen and leftovers from dinner, Shikako lead us over rooftop towards her clan compound, something that took me longer than it should have to figure out. I was going to have to relearn the village from this new vantage point, which I mentally allotted a week to sometime this summer in my head. And that was on top of all of the stuff I already wanted to do this summer. Which was no small list.

When we got there, I was surprised to see all members of the future Rookie Nine sitting around, just talking. I assumed they were waiting on me and Naruto, in addition to the hostess of course, but just seeing them all in one place kind of jarred me. Sasuke, the lone survivor of his brother's massacre. Shikamaru, the smartest person his age, no matter what room he walked into. Choji, the faithful and friendly human tank. Ino, the seemingly ditzy blonde that actually was vivacious, and had a wit as sharp as any kunai. Kiba, the loyal friend that protected his own to the death. Shino, the forgotten one, without whom common sense and logic may have been lost on this bunch. Hinata, the shy girl whose beauty was only matched by her compassion. Sakura, the second coming of Tsunade, 'nuff said. Naruto, the dead last who would one day achieve his dream of becoming the best there is.

And then there was us. The two reincarnates. Nara Shikako, and Kaze-Uzumaki Kasai. In a way, we were alone, having only each other to rely on. We knew things that they didn't.

And that wasn't necessarily a good thing.

But, for today, I put that out of my head, and focused on what was in front of me. A good day of training.

Kiba challenged me to a taijutsu spar, and Yoshino volunteered to be the proctor for it, which I was grateful for, because Kiba had a hard time stopping unless someone not in the fight stopped him. The fight was spirited and fast paced, but I was hardly winded at the end of it, so Naruto challenged me. I carefully kept this one going, preventing him from gathering too much momentum, but not shutting him down either. But, eventually, I ended that fight too.

I was introduced to everyone I hadn't been introduced to yet, Shino being quiet and not quite shy, Hinata blushing cutely, and Kiba brashly calling me his rival. I had to stifle a groan at that last one. That was the last thing I needed. But, I dealt with it for now.

* * *

The rest of March passed peacefully, the high point being when I got a book on medicine for Sakura's birthday. But starting the second day of April, I disappeared into the underbelly of Konoha. I returned just in time for Choji's birthday, giving him a recipe book from Kumo that I had acquired. I had let my hair grow out, and it was now in a high tail, just beginning to droop under the effects of gravity. I'd had a growth spurt, and now stood at around a hundred forty-two centimeters, making me temporarily taller than everyone else. Naruto had been worried about me, and Shikako had confessed that she thought that Danzo had gotten to me, due to the fact that I was an orphan protégé. I assured her I hadn't had any contact with the old war hawk, sticking out my tongue to prove it to her. But there were things I'd been forced to deal with, my rising fame in the Konoha Underground forcing me to become involved. I'd taken on an alias, moving through circles like a wraith, until I had come to own it.

As it was, I had been forced to "convince" a man to be my puppet head, letting him have an amount of money to ensure his loyalty. My time was becoming more and more pressed, and I was forced to reevaluate a lot of things.

I was proficient enough in kenjutsu that Hayate felt comfortable letting me practice on my own, which I did every day, for at least two hours before breakfast every morning, followed by an hour of taijutsu practice with Naruto after breakfast. Then, a week after I returned from my sabbatical, Shikako got me interested in learning seals. I was reluctant at first, not wanting to spend so much time on something that would take years to see a viable return on, but finally, she convinced me that the end results would be worth all the frustration.

And so, following my taijutsu practice with my pseudo-brother, I began studying sealing with Shikako until noon, where we would pause for lunch, usually paid for by someone's lifted wallet. Not that Shikako knew, she seemed oblivious to the idea that Konoha was anything less than perfect, her eyes sliding right past the urchins that had taught me how to survive on the streets of this village. I could tell it wasn't conscious, because her eyes wouldn't slide back to them as she passed them, she just didn't seem to comprehend the idea that there were homeless in her home village. Surely, Konoha didn't have poor people living in the elements? It was nothing against her, it was just that she was sheltered. Even Naruto had learned things from the people on the streets before we moved in together. That boy could pick a lock faster than you could tell him it was locked.

I didn't tell her, not to spite her, but so that she could enjoy her second childhood. I just wished I could have had one in my first lifetime. Being the child of a soldier was hard, what with my Dad always going off overseas, and telling me I was the man of the house while he was gone, and that it was my responsibility to watch out for my mom and two sisters. I didn't hold it against anybody, but sometimes I wondered what it was like, to have a family that was close. To not have to worry about things that I had come to consider normal in this new life, like getting food on the table, stretching funds to cover bills, learning how to protect myself from grown men. None of this was unusual for me now, but once upon a time, I would have looked at what I've become and condemned me.

But I didn't have that luxury anymore.

So, I kept quiet, putting on a cheerful façade for Shikako and all of the other Rookies, and I buried myself in work.

Sealing was interesting. I think it might have been heritage, but the art of turning words into power just kind of… _clicked_ for me, like I was hardwired to understand all the swirls and twists, how things connected. I was no genius at it, but I just worked progressively through it, like a worm tunneling across a garden.

Shikako though, she was, in fact a genius, plowing through books, compiling notes, comparing and contrasting, writing her own Sealing for Dummies basically, since there were no texts in the civilian section of the Konoha Public Library. She was like a rabbit, making leaps of logic and connecting ideas that I was only distantly aware of being connected. She surpassed me several times, but my steady advancement managed to put me ahead of her just as many times. It turned into a contest that honestly terrified our friends. The idea that two near ten year olds were making explosives out of paper and a little bit of ink terrified them, and Shikako's father, Shikaku, ended up sitting us down and making us promise we wouldn't start blowing things up without him or Yoshino around. I just stared at him until he figured out that I wasn't going to give my word on that since he wasn't my parent, nor an authority figure I considered deserved obedience.

Shikako was resourceful though, delving into her clan archives on the subject of sealing, and that school year, not two weeks after I turned ten, Shikako and I started giving our teachers grey hairs as we totally ignored our classes, focusing only on sealing, and still acing everything thrown our way. Gramps commented on how focused we were on our study of fuuinjutsu when I next had lunch with him, to which I confessed our little competition of who could become an accomplished fuuinjutsu user first, without cutting corners. He was a little wary at first, until I explained in detail what all was happening between us.

The next time I had lunch with him, I brought Shikako's Sealing for Dummies notebooks, the majority of them encrypted using my third tier codes, which was as far as Shikako had been able to get in breaking and using the codes I'd begun presenting her with after we discovered just how much I sucked at Shogi. She wasn't good at code breaking, it had taken her a month and a half to break my simple, first tier codes that I had used to encrypt the stories and such I'd copied from Before, and six months to break my second tier code. It had taken her until just before we started learning fuuinjutsu to break the third tier, almost eight months total for that alone.

I had broken all of her codes in a matter of a month, once she felt comfortable showing me her encryption techniques, which infuriated her to no end. Though, since she was my superior in Shogi, she was fine with me being her superior in encryption.

But, when I showed the encrypted work to Gramps, he was mind-boggled that I'd come up with such complex codes that didn't have anything to do with Konoha conventional codes. He tried to have me let him use the codes that Shikako and I were using, to which I adamantly refused, though I told him I would consider making specific codes for the village, provided I received a profit from the village using it. He promised to think about it, and in the meantime, I created several codes that the village could use, without exposing any of the ones Shikako and I used, since they were written in English, and we didn't want anyone learning how to read that. We'd both written down such damning evidence that the risk of someone even having a chance to break my codes wasn't worth it.

In the end, one month later, at the lunch with Gramps, he proposed something to me. Something that I thought was a godsend. I was going to be paid if I let Konoha use my codes! I would be paid half a ryo per message Konoha sent and received, and with almost four hundred messages a day, I was set to make almost seventy thousand ryo a year for the rest of my life! And that's after taxes! I could use that money for so much! Gramps even had a contract for me with him, and since I had about three different codes, each one more difficult than the last, with the third one being chosen to be used for ANBU! That was another hundred messages a day! The first would be used for genin and chunin, the second for jonin and special jonin, and the third would be for ANBU!

Gramps took me back to his office, sending an ANBU to the Academy to tell Suzume-sensei that I would be indisposed for the rest of the day, and that I would be making up my work the next monday.

That night was spent in negotiations with Gramps and the village treasurer, the contract that Gramps had initially shown me having been burnt up by a seemingly errant ember from his pipe. It wasn't until sometime around five the next morning that the new contract was written up, the treasurer actually seeming pleased with the idea that he would be spending money on someone that wasn't even a ninja yet. In the end, I was getting paid three different wages, one for each code. The first, for genin and chunin, would net me half a ryo per message, with approximately one hundred and twenty-five messages a day, would net me just under twenty three thousand ryo before taxes. The code for special jonin and jonin would net me point seven five ryo per message, averaging seventy-five messages a day would net me about twenty thousand five hundred ryo before taxes.

The best part was the ANBU one, where I would earn one point two five ryo per message! At an average of one hundred messages a day, I would get forty five thousand six hundred and twenty five ryo a year! Adding all that together and putting in for the five percent income tax Konoha had, I was bringing home eighty four thousand five hundred and twenty ryo a year! There was even a little part of the contract stating that I was able to submit new codes every six months to keep things fresh, with a twenty thousand ryo tax free bonus for each new code I gave to the village of Konohagakure! So long as my codes continued to prove superior to every other code used previously, my income was set for life!

Of course, I was sworn to secrecy, as seemed to be the norm in this village, but I didn't mind. I'd hit the jackpot for money! And since I submitted three codes at the same time, I received a sixty thousand ryo cheque on the spot, which I used to open a bank account under an alias at a bank that I knew to be doing well, and being good at being discrete with their customers. As a bank run by retired shinobi, I knew my money was in safe hands.

A few weeks later, Gramps admitted to me over lunch that the number of people capable of learning and memorizing the full code had almost doubled, while security had simultaneously increased exponentially. I told him stories about how I'd heard Graduate Year students complaining about suddenly having the cryptography class redone around the new code, and having to learn the new one. We both had a good laugh about that.

I hadn't told Shikako or Naruto about the new income I had, as I continued picking pockets to pay for the nicer stuff that Naruto and I needed around the apartment, and repairs to the air conditioner before summer hit again.

It was early February when Shikako made a rather unexpected discovery. In order to be able to make seals, a fuuinjutsu user needed to have _perfect_ handwriting. Not good, not okay, _perfect_.

That was when I looked at our handwriting, and realized that we fell into that typical, _"super smart people have messy handwriting because they have so much going on in their head"_ archetype of handwriting, and that we still had a long time to go to be able to start even inking our own seals. Gramps laughed at the next lunch when I told him about our little hang up on sealing, and he told me that he had been waiting on when we discovered that little detail. Then he began recounting tales of how he'd been forced to teach Jiraiya how to ink kanji in the necessary perfection for him to begin his journey to seal mastery. He was sure to be detailed in how often the old toad got himself blown up or heavily burnt. And how often he ended up missing his eyebrows. I just glared at him, and told him that that wasn't going to stop us.

When the Academy year ended in the beginning of March, Shikako and I took to the library, her from morning to night, myself from noon to night. I, unfortunately, had more things to do than her, so she began pulling ahead of me in our race to seal mastery, but I kept up by dint of late night practice, and sheer tenacity. She would take a ten minute break every hour, while I continued practicing my kanji for hours on end without stopping. Though, she stopped taking as many breaks when she saw that I was beginning to catch up to her again.

One thing you need to understand about sealing, is that, ironically enough, the simplest seal to make and use, is the explosive seal. The next, is storage seals. After that, there are enough variations on seals and their uses that trying to put them in a strength to complication ratio and hierarchy was enough to give _me_ a headache.

Shikako and I dedicated a whole note book to comparing the twelve most used branches of sealing arts. Method, theory, range of uses, results, points of conflicts… It was exhausting. We copied images of famous seal master's signature seals, wrote down the owners, like my relative Uzumaki Mito and her infamous chakra sealing seals that cut a ninja off from their own chakra networks without killing them, Jiraiya's well known human summoning seal which allowed him to summon someone who had the marker seal on them… But there was _nothing_ on how to create our own seals, or how to apply them with a touch for use in combat. There was not _a thing_ on any of that, and this was when I cursed ninja for their obsessive compulsive nature to hide information.

But, we made discoveries that we hadn't expected. Though, Shikako admitted to knowing most of this beforehand. The hospital pretty much _ran_ on seals. There were seals to keep the heart beating, to perform blood dialysis, to keep a person breathing, to put them in a medical coma, to put them to sleep for surgery, anything that had required some form of technology Before, a seal was used for it here. Which meant that Tsunade had done a fair bit of learning about seals, after all, the blood dialysis seal was her invention! But again, nothing on how to _create our own seals_!

Oh sure, we came up for workable ideas of variations on explosive seals, but we couldn't try them out until our kanji was up to par. Our summer passed in a bit of a blur, time seeming to accelerate the closer to graduation we got. Three new codes were made in the span of a week, and turned in the following Monday, and all three implemented on the first of July, and sixty thousand more ryo tossed in my bank account. I had given a routing number to the Konoha treasurer, so my monthly pay from all messages sent using my codes was automatically put into the same account.

Three days later was my birthday, which was when I received a purple delphinium plant from Naruto. He was an avid gardener, and when Shikako saw the thing on my windowsill, she laughed until I got her to tell me what she was laughing about. Apparently Naruto had gotten me the flower of my birth month. But then it got kind of odd, because there were three different colors for the plant, with pink being a sign of fickleness, white being the color of joyfulness, or being happy go lucky. Naruto had gotten me a purple one, which mean "you have such a sweet disposition." I knew it was sarcastic, because I knew Naruto had grumbled about how I should smile more.

By the time Shikako left after giving me an ink and brush set, I had already hatched a plan to get my revenge on Naruto. Not that I was going to get rid of the plant, because I liked it, and it was a gift from my pseudo-brother.

* * *

The next morning, said pseudo-brother started howling at the crack of dawn. On the other side of the village. On my birthday, I'd lifted enough wallets to buy the necessary ingredients to create a sleeping gas, which I had used on Naruto once he fell asleep the previous night. It was strong enough to keep him unconscious while I had used three rolls of shrink wrap I'd 'acquired' to secure him to his mattress. Then I'd gotten Hayate and Yugao to help me take bed and boy to the Hokage Tower, where we'd used another three rolls of shrink wrap to secure the mattress to the top of the flag pole that typically flew the village symbol. Then I'd left him there all night.

He didn't return until noon, carrying his mattress on his back, grumbling, and in nothing but his boxers. Pink, frog covered boxers.

I was sitting at the kitchen table when he came back, working on my kanji, and it took every ounce of self-control to not bust out laughing right away.

"What the hell happened to you, Naruto?" I asked, wide-eyed and perfectly innocent. "When I woke up and didn't hear you, I assumed you'd gone training like you do every once in a while."

"You did this to me!" Naruto yelled, dropping his mattress just inside the door to point accusingly at me.

"Um, bro, I was at Hayate and Yugao's last night, and came back around midnight. I went to sleep like, five minutes later after I got undressed, like usual."

Naruto wilted like a flower in the desert.

"Wha-? Bu-? Huh?"

"But, the door was unlocked when I got home, so maybe someone you pranked one too many times got in here and did that to you. What did they do to you, anyways?"

"Never you mind!" Naruto growled, towing his mattress back towards his room.

"I was waiting for you to get back since I saw your keys still here!" I called out. "I'm heading over to Shikako's for seal practice!"

I waited until I was two full streets away before I broke down laughing. Shikako didn't understand why I showed up to her house with tears in my eyes until I explained what I'd done to Naruto, choking my way through my laughter. Nara Yoshino had overheard it, and soon joined us with her peals of laughter. It was a good day.

Soon, though, the Academy started back up, and we began the basics of learning "advanced" chakra control. In other words, tree leaf sticking. I shocked Suzume-sensei by telling her that I was capable of water walking, and Shikako told me that she herself had freaked out her parents and brother by telling Iruka-sensei that she could tree walk. She'd been afraid to start water walking yet, citing the fear of falling into a river she couldn't get herself out of, and I idly wondered if she'd been in a landlocked place Before, where she'd not been able to go swimming much. I couldn't think of many places like that though, and I wondered if she'd just not learned to swim that well as a child Before, and not felt like becoming proficient in her adulthood. People who didn't learn how to swim as children typically tended to not learn as adults, which made them wary of water.

On the other hand, I wrote a note for myself that I posted in my yearly calendar telling me to 'train' Shikako in how to swim. Oh, that was going to be fun.

Since I was so proficient at chakra control exercises, the teachers decided to give me a little extra credit assignment by having me teach the chakra control exercises throughout the year. It was annoying, to put it lightly, but I was still able to maintain my position at the head of the class, in addition to continuing to work on my kanji and sealing to keep up with Shikako. Naruto complained that I knew too much, of course, until I sat down and explained to him in detail just how complex sealing was, and how hard it was for me to do all the things I was doing. He didn't believe me, until I got him to try sealing. He didn't understand any of it. Which made me wonder how in the hell he was actually an Uzumaki, much less related to the most famous fuuinjutsu user since our ancestor Uzumaki Mito.

Other than that, the school year passed without much to it. We began doing survival training towards the end of August, which lasted us all the way to the end of October. Every Thursday and Friday, we would pack up Academy issue packs, and tramp out to a random training ground, set aside specially for us to learn how to survive in the wilderness.

This was another area that I surprised my peers and teachers in. Before, I'd lived with grandparents who lived out in the middle of nowhere. People would actually pay my grandfather in order to come hunt on his property, because there were always deer, fox squirrels, rabbits, and he even had a pond stocked with fish, and an unfortunate case of snapping turtle. I had actually spent an entire summer there, post deployment, living in the woods surrounding his house, living off the land, hunting deer, squirrel, and rabbit, taking fully matured corn off the corn stalks, as Grandpa had told me I could, and occasionally breaking up the monotony by having some fish and snapping turtle. I knew how to stalk game. I knew how to skin it, cook it, and make it taste delicious.

I knew how to do all this stuff, I'd lived under the stars without a tent as a Marine, and I'd lived in the woods with and without a tent in my grandparent's forest. On the one hand, I knew what I was doing, on the other, I was required to help everyone around me.

Thankfully, the teachers recognized that in showing everyone how to do things, I was doing a majority of the work, so they finally let me off the teaching hook.

That extra credit better be _damn_ good in the end.

I ended up being the one person to not have a partner when it was time to go hunting, which I was just fine with, because I disappeared to start the hunt before the teachers had officially released everyone. My dinner of rabbit and squirrel was already half cooked by the time everyone else got back, marinating in a lovely stew that I'd spiced and seasoned with various herbs I'd found in the forest undergrowth.

Habit from Before dictated that I eat lightly, for quick movement, and maintain a high state of alert for unknown threats. I stayed up late, and got up early, staying in a light sleep I'd begun perfecting once again in this lifetime, after waking up one too many times with itching powder in my pajamas after coming to live with Naruto. I'd had it Before, but I needed it again as a ninja, and it saved me from being doused with water by Suzume-sensei, who congratulated me the next day, and told the class I'd been the only one to successfully evade being doused. All of my classmates were shivering in the chill morning air, their clothes damp as they glared at me. I just hummed to myself as I packed my stuff up quickly and efficiently, disappearing as soon as Suzume-sensei told the class to head home and change and shower before bringing our issued gear back to the Academy.

Every Thursday and Friday following that one in late August, we spent out in the field, slowly progressing from basic camping, to laying traps, creating perimeters, digging pits, tracking in unfamiliar territory, everything we would need to know for when on missions out in the rough. I aced it all, all of this very familiar territory that I'd had to internalize Before. Whenever we met up, Shikako told horror stories of how she'd vaguely managed to avoid being soaked thanks to her chakra sensitivity, to which I told her she needed to get a seventh sense, since we both already had a sixth, to tell her when she's in danger that didn't depend on her sensitivity at all. She seemed horrified when I told her this, as if the idea of _not_ using her sensitivity had been her plan for her whole life. I changed the subject then, figuring she still hadn't thought that far ahead.

While our sensitivity was awesome, it wasn't the end all of sensory abilities. It was like new infantryman Before thinking that night vision goggles let them see everything in the dark. While, yes, technically, they do, you have to have days on days' worth of experience to be able to recognize objects at night through NVG's, because you weren't used to seeing the world in neon green.

When I next had a meal with Gramps in October, it was at dinner, since he'd been extra busy with paperwork that day, and we had been reviewing our performances out in the field. He commented on how well I was doing, wondering where I'd learned all of the skills I'd been using out in the field, which I simply ignored, and changed the subject. There was one more field training for the month of October, and then after that, we only did field ops once a month for the rest of the school year.

Nothing unusual happened, though Shikako and I finally got our kanji inking within the necessary parameters necessary for us to begin making exploding notes, though we agreed to wait until summer time to begin experimenting with that, not wanting to chance someone bumping us in class and setting of a dynamite stick's worth of explosive power in our faces. We continued working on our kanji though, determined to add speed to perfection, which was far more difficult than one would expect.

For Yule season, Naruto managed to arrange a little gift exchange between us Uzumaki, and the Nara Head family, with Naruto gifting everyone with flowers of some kind, though this time he was smart enough to not turn it into a joke. I got a variety of things for the Nara family, a recipe book of exotic dishes from Kirigakure for Yoshino, a personally made chess board with pieces with written instructions for Shikaku, several spools of ninja wire for Shikamaru with a note saying "If ever there is both a light, and an object, there must be a shadow, no matter how small."

Shikako and I almost got laughed out of the room, the both of us having gotten the exact same, extremely high end calligraphy ink and brush set. I'd ended up dipping into my secret account to pay for it, the price somewhere around three months' worth of rent for me and Naruto, which made me wonder if Shikako had paid for it herself, or if she'd convinced daddy dearest to pay for it.

That man could say what he wanted, but he was putty around his daughter's fingers.

She could use "Doe Eyes" like a master, though I think she was taking advantage of the fact that she'd had who knew how many fawns and does to learn from.

Right after the celebration though, I spent a week making codes for Konoha, which were once again implemented on January first, and I once again put sixty thousand away in my secret bank account.

When school resumed, we began learning the basic mechanics for chakra manipulation to pull off ninjutsu. We knew the theory from the year before, but now we were learning the actual _twist_ and _pull_ and _push_ behind the hand seals. I already knew all of this from when I'd spent weeks and months in the Konoha Public Library, but now that I had someone _showing_ as well as telling, it was so much easier. My hand seals were flawless, according to Suzume-sensei, so while everyone was trying to twist their hands into the right forms, she moved me on to learning the hand seal sequences for the Academy basic three. They were easy, with the Kawarimi being the most complicated because of how many things you were doing, in addition to it having the most hand seals at five total.

It wasn't until late February that something unusual happened.

"Kasai, I'd like you to meet one of my students." Gramps told me when we had lunch. "He's back at my office right now, and he would like to meet you."

I squinted sharply at him, and spoke my thoughts aloud.

"The only students you ever had were the Sannin, consisting of Senju Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru, the latter of which defected from the village as an S rank nuke-nin." I stated, which got a nod from Gramps, in addition to a frown. "Tsunade, though not a nuke-nin, is classified as 'on vacation' and has been for over twenty years, with legend stating her parting words were something along the lines of 'I'm never coming back to this hellhole.'"

Gramps frowned even more. I ignored it.

"That leaves Jiraiya, the only one of your students to remain openly loyal to Konoha, a reputed pervert, and also the spymaster of Konoha in one hell of an open secret. Am I missing anything?" I asked.

"No, I think you got everything." Gramps drawled dryly. "Now, since you're done with your ramen, why don't we go meet him in my office?"

"Sounds good, Gramps." I smiled cheekily, and with that, he put a hand on my shoulder and we disappeared in a Shunshin.

And reappeared in his office, where I stumbled slightly, but quickly shook off the disorientation inherent with the high speed movement technique. Almost immediately, my chakra sense was assaulted by a high power signature I'd never felt before, and I whirled towards it, falling into the defensive opening of my taijutsu style, and holding there. That was when I saw him.

It had to be Jiraiya, nobody else had hair quite like that, or dressed like that, or had a giant-ass scroll hooked onto them. But I didn't drop my guard.

"Who are you?" I asked.

He looked at me, then ignored me as he spoke to Gramps.

"Oi, sensei," he grumbled. "I thought you said you were getting me Konoha's new code master?"

He said this as he stepped around me, and I easily shuffled on the balls of my feet to continue facing him, angling my body to provide a smaller target, while simultaneously allowing myself a greater avenue of attack.

"Kasai, stand down," Gramps stated, moving to sit behind his desk, a pipe appearing in his mouth. "Jiraiya, I'd like you to meet Konoha's newest code master, Kasai."

I slowly moved out of my taijutsu stance, and went to stand slightly behind and to the left of Jiraiya, keeping him constantly just forward of my peripherals, in that perfect spot between obviously staring at him, and side-eying him.

"What, the brat?" Jiraiya asked, turning his head to stare at me.

" _I wonder how much you really know if you're actually a spy-master like everyone says you are."_ I drawled in English, earning a look from both people visible, as well as that all too familiar _twist_ of chakra from everyone else that I was so used to feeling from ANBU level signatures.

This would prove to be interesting.

* * *

 **So, yeah. This is a thing. Leave a review please!**


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